Karen loved to tell this story to everyone she met. I post it in honor of her upcoming birthday, November 23. She would have been 57. (See my post below this one for my thoughts). She told the story better than I do here and, she understood better what all the technical things were, of course. All I can do is my best, which is necessary, but not sufficient.
It was the summer of 2004, the night of the Republican convention in which W was to speak. Karen and I were returning from Provincetown and had designed things so that we would NOT be on the ground in NYC for the event. So, there we were in the night sky, Karen attending to the pilot things and me, thinking, "I'm in the night sky. This is so cool. This is beautiful. I'm like a star..." and other non-profound thoughts. Suddenly, I got a punch in the leg.
In order for Karen and I to hear each other, we both had to wear headphones. That technically meant that, were I not contemplating singing "Twinkle, twinkle" to myself, I should have heard the transmission from the tower in NY. So, when a flustered Karen followed the punch with "Did you hear that?" I was forced to tell the truth and say, "No, I was night-dreaming." She didn't find it cute.
"Ma'am, get out of BRAVO space now." BRAVO space refers to the central, most important air space -- in this case we were in NY's BRAVO space which we needed to be in order to get home. And suddenly we were being told to scram somewhere in the night sky. Karen was about to ask where in this vast expanse we were expected/allowed to go in order to get to our destination of Caldwell airport when a nicer voice came on the radio and said, "Just point toward ----" I forget where it was he said, but it made instant sense to Karen and she proceeded to re-program whatever the device is called that you do that to in order to change course. About a minute later, we both heard another transmission. "Air Force One Requesting Clearance for take off." Karen says my eyes went raccoon wide. About a half minute later, we heard, "Air Force One you have clearance to take off."
So, apparently, we'd been bopped out of BRAVO space because the Shrub didn't want to spend any more time on the ground than he had to, either. His ship and ours literally passed in the night, both avoiding each other.
Shortly after, I believe, we were able to ask if we could return to our original course, which we did, feeling just a little bit cooler than we already thought we were.
Karen Beth Hunter, November 23, 1951 - Sept 2, 2005.
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